


Through a Shattered Mirror

by Wolfgal63



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Leonard "Bones" McCoy Whump, M/M, Mind Meld
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2019-03-09
Packaged: 2019-09-15 05:01:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16926981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolfgal63/pseuds/Wolfgal63
Summary: Thick amusement at his pathetic struggles overtakes his desperation. It is the fascinated yet disengaged feeling a sociopathic child would have ripping the legs off a bug.He can almost see thick black brows raised in thinly veiled pleasure as deep brown eyes study the various variables of an interesting specimen. The words that made his blood run cold in his veins, echo within his mind.“Our minds are merging, Doctor.”Or: Leonard is struggling though the aftermath of a forced mind meld while Jim and Spock think this is the perfect time to try and bring him into their relationship.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Acts of Man](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1059074) by [mjolkk (glassamilk)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/glassamilk/pseuds/mjolkk). 



> Warning: This story will contain depictions of mental and emotional health topics with a few panic attacks sprinkled in for good measure. If you are triggered by any of these subjects, please utilize self-care even if it means you pass on reading this story.

“Spock, stop twiddling your thumbs and get your skinny Vulcan ass over to the console so we can go,” Leonard McCoy grumbles, fiddling with his tricorder for the tenth time. He pretends not to see the mirth in Uhura’s half smile at the familiar griping. 

“Firstly Doctor, I would prefer it if you would refrain from making comments about my posterior region, especially if you insist on using such vulgar language,” the deeper tones of the Enterprise’s First Officer replies. His brown eyes flicker over the doctor’s lean frame with an aloof disdain that had not dissipated despite how many times Leonard had literally held the Vulcan’s life in his hands.

“Secondly, your departure is also dependent upon the Captain’s arrival, so even if I were to position myself away from the transporter pad, you would still be unable to depart in a timely manner.”

Leonard barely stops himself from rolling his eyes. “If the Captain has any smidgen of self-preservation left after all the crap he has pulled, he’ll show up in the next thirty seconds or else-”

The rest of his rant is cut short as the Captain himself strides into the transporter bay with a smirk pasted on his face. The hackles on the back of Leonard’s neck rise. He has seen that smirk too many times during their time at the Academy. That is the patented “Jim Kirk got laid” smirk. 

And what’s worse is that the smirk only grows when Jim sees Leonard scowling.

“Hello to you too, Bones,” Jim says as he absent mindedly pats Spock’s shoulder. The way his touch lingers on the Vulcan’s deltoid is an all too telling sign of who that lucky partner was.

Leonard resorts to employing his favorite scowl at the man-child.

“So, glad that you decided to grace us with your presence, Captain sir. Now if you would kindly step onto the transporter so that we could leave that would be most appreciated.”

Jim laughed brightly, finally letting his hand drop from the First Officer’s shoulder. “Careful there. It almost sounds as if you’re warming up to using our transporters.”

“Believe me, Jim, I still hate the infernal contraptions but it has been three months since the last shore leave. I’m at the point that I would willingly climb aboard a photon torpedo and ride it down to the planet’s surface just to get off this bucket of bolts for five minutes.” Bones turned to glare at Spock whose mouth was half open to respond.

“And Spock, I swear to God that if you say that is illogical then I will not be responsible for my actions.”

Both of the Vulcan’s eyebrows rose. “Interesting.”

Bones tilted his head back until he was looking beseechingly up at the ceiling. “Lord, save me from fools and green-blooded hobgoblins who take every chance to drive me insane.”

Jim laughed bestowing a clap on Ensign Riley’s shoulder as he walked past the transporter console. “Let’s get Doctor McCoy down to the surface in one piece before he starts to implore deities to smite us.” 

The young man’s mouth quirked up. “Yes, sir.”

“What is the name of this infernal planet, again?”

“Halkan.”

A sense of foreboding steals over Leonard as Jim calls out the familiar phrase, “Energize.”

***

There’s pain. 

It’s inside his skull, scraping against his brain. Sharp spikes scratch his orbital plate over and over again, slowly whittling away thin slices of bone. Tongues of fire burn through his mind with every hint of conscious thought. Numbers and symbols skitter around the edges of his consciousness, running through formulas he has never seen before. Desperate for anything that isn’t the searing heat of his own thoughts, he tries to grasp at the cold logic only for it to slip through his comprehension. 

Thick amusement at his pathetic struggles overtakes his desperation. It is the fascinated yet disengaged feeling a sociopathic child would have ripping the legs off a bug. 

He can almost see thick black brows raised in thinly veiled pleasure as deep brown eyes study the various variables of an interesting specimen. The words that made his blood run cold in his veins, echo within his mind. 

“Our minds are merging, Doctor.”

Leonard’s eyes fly open as his body suddenly responds to the spike of adrenaline that swamps his endocrine system. White light stabs into his corneas but the first color he sees is red. It’s the same red that had soaked his mind when the tearing began.

Leonard curls into himself as he chokes on the whimper in his throat. 

Sounds wash over him yet all he can hear is the frantic pounding of his heart and the harsh pant of each breath. A distant part of Leonard’s brain diagnoses the symptoms of a panic attack but the rest of him is too busy panicking to give a shit.

Sharp, stabbing pain laces through his wrist. Leonard has to swallow against the bile that rises in response. 

He knows what will happen next. Those burning fingers will press against his face with feverish intensity while an ice-cold wall against his back will prevent any retreat. 

Not again, please God not again.

“Laddie, you got tae breathe.” 

The fear stutters for a moment at the passionate words which are so different from the aloof monotone he was expecting. 

There is only one person who calls Leonard laddie. 

Leonard forces his eyes open. The light stabs again at his eyes, and the colors blur for a moment before finally settling into the image of the familiar Scotsman’s face creased with lines of worry. The engineer is covering Leonard’s hand, pressing it against his own chest. Leonard can feel the warm flesh and solid bone rise and fall with each measured breath beneath his palm. 

He is real. Scotty’s real. 

Scotty’s blue-grey eyes crinkle a bit at the edges when Leonard’s gaze meets his own. Those usually cheerfully bright eyes are still dark with concern and fatigue. 

“Hey there, doc. Think ye can breathe for me?”

Leonard struggles to inhale but it feels as if there are metal bands constricting his rib cage. Scotty tightens his grip on Leonard’s hand and begins to mutter encouragement. Finally, Leonard’s diaphragm decides to drop a bit and he manages a small ragged breath of sweet oxygen.

“That’s it, lad. Now, again.” 

The tension slowly begins to drain from Leonard’s body as Scotty coaches him through each breath until it evens out. The panic and the pain are both still there, skirting the edge of his awareness but Leonard can finally think beyond the overwhelming need to breathe. 

They are kneeling in the transporter room at the foot of the damn device that had scattered their molecules and sent them to that nightmare. Had it only been that morning when Jim had laughingly brushed off his grumbling about transporters? 

“Wha’ happen’?” Leonard slurred.

Scotty’s frown deepened as he glanced over to the comm panel on the wall. “We ur back on th’ Enterprise. Our Enterprise.”

The tightness in his gut relaxed a little. They were back. 

They were safe.

“Is e’eryone al’igh’?” 

Scotty huffs out a pale specter of a laugh. “They ran off tae make sure our silver lady is alrecht as soon as we materialized.”

“Then we best get goin’ too.”

Leonard begins to push himself up to his feet, ignoring Scotty’s halting protests. They must have been kneeling a while because his knees are aching something fierce. As soon as his feet are beneath him, Leonard knows that he has made a huge mistake. The room tilts dangerously to the side and his stomach lurches in protest. 

Leonard distantly hears rough curses in a Scottish brogue as a hard shoulder is shoved under his arm. He mutters an absent-minded thanks as the transporter room slowly settles back into equilibrium. 

Scotty glances up at him, the concern creeping back into his features.

“Come on. Let’s get ye tae Sick Bay.” 

Leonard shakes his head and instantly regrets as his brain sloshes around in the cerebral fluid. “I’m goin’ to my room. I jus’ need a bi’ o’ sleep,” he says, taking a step towards the door.

Instead of letting go, Scotty tightens his hold around the doctor.

“Jist wait a second before ye fall over.”

“Dammit, Imma doctor not an invalid,” Leonard mumbles as the door politely slides open.

“Aye, that ye are, but ye know what they say about docs makin’ th’ worst patients.” 

Leonard snorts, letting the other man lead him through the pristine halls of the U.S.S Enterprise. The dim lights and lack of people means that the ship is probably in the middle of Gamma shift. The garish symbol of the Empire is absent from the echoing white walls. The smell of disinfectant is strong enough to cover the scent of the congealing blood he can feel stick to the bottom of his boots with each step. Scotty gently shakes him. 

“Hmm?” Leonard muttered, dragging his attention back to where they have stopped in front of a familiar door.

“Ah need yer code tae get in, doc.” 

Too tired to decipher the swimming numbers of his keypad, Leonard mumbles the code, ignoring the slight whispers in the back of his mind of how Scotty will now be able to waltz into his room whenever he damn well pleases to slip a blade between his ribs. The door slides open with a happy chirp and the brilliant white lights flip on. 

Leonard curses as he shuts his eyes, croaking out an order at the computer to turn off the damn lights. 

“You arenae lookin’ too good. Maybe I shoulda taken ye tae Sick Bay.”

Too tired to even muster a response, Leonard gestures back to the door as he stumbles to collapse on the couch. Scotty whispers something about Vulcans and possessive starship captains but Leonard is already unconscious.


	2. Chapter 2

_“Our minds are merging, Doctor.”_

_Leonard’s wrist creaks beneath the strength of the Vulcan’s grip. The alien’s fingers burn against his face with feverish intensity while the ice-cold steel against his back prevent any retreat._

_“Our minds are one.” The intoned words tear at his brain; they burrow deep into his mind. “I feel what you feel. I know what you know.”_

_Any sense of the outside world fades in the wake of the burning chill in his head. Statistics of theoretical probability race through formulas he has never seen, moving so swiftly that Leonard only has a vague impression of the thoughts running through his own mind._

_“Why did you save me?” the other asks._

_Vague wisps of memories dart through his thoughts. A thick black brow raised in veiled amusement; sharp brown eyes fixed on data scrolling on a black screen; the smoky scent of incense; a steady warm presence next to him._

_“Interesting.”_

_He delves deeper into Leonard’s mind, flipping through memories like a spoilt child, carelessly tearing through the pages of a picture book. Leonard almost throws up as his memories begin flashing through his mind even as they fray at the edges._

_Just as suddenly as it started, it stops. Spock lingers over a moment, almost caressing it, as Leonard struggles to remain conscious._

_No, not this one. Any one but this one._

_“You are not so different from us after all.”_

* * *

 

Leonard jerks upright with a scream locked in his throat as pain lances through his hip. Shadows flicker in and out of focus around him as those hot, burning fingers lock on his face.

One moment he is in that macabre version of his Sick Bay where blood congeals on the cold metal floor; the next moment it’s the sterile, shining deck beneath his cheek that Jim grips about whenever he has a migraine.

Leonard’s muscles are twitching frantically, whether from adrenaline or cold he honestly doesn’t know. He grits his teeth, trying to force the bite of bile back.

It has been a week. A whole goddamn week and he still can’t get more than solid three hours of sleep before he wakes up in a panic. Leonard has tried everything from working out till he just about collapsed to sleeping pills. That had been a terrible mistake. The only thing worse than waking from the nightmares was being trapped in them.

The door to his office hisses open and for a moment the shadows cling like dried blood on the white women’s shoes. The person halts and even the whisper of a breath locks in his chest as his heart begins to beat frantically. “Doctor McCoy?”

Christine. The concern and confusion in her voice is nothing like the cold, sharp snap of the woman from that other world.

“Here,” he grumbles, wiping the sweat off his brow with the edge of his sleeve.

The white shoes walk around his desk and the perfectly coiffed nurse is gazing down at him with displeasure and apprehension in her frown.

Leonard puts a hand down to leverage himself up but his elbow nearly gives way under his own weight. Scowling in frustration, he holds his other hand out to the nurse whose sharp blue gaze is watching his every move like a protective mother bear. “Well, are you gonna stand there gawking all day or help me up?”

Christine grabs his proffered hand in a firm grasp and hauls him to his feet. “Jesus, woman. You should be on security with a grip like that,” Leonard says, shaking his hand out.

She rolls her eyes and places a hand in the middle of his back, shoving him towards the door. Still struggling to calm the reeling jumble in his brain, Leonard stumbles forward a few steps as stable as a new born foal.

“Christine,” he tries to growl intimidatingly but she promptly ignores him and continues to propel him across the main bay area, ignoring the snickering of the other nurses and patients.

“By my count, you have been hiding out in your office for over five hours now despite the fact that your shift ended two hours ago. You are going to go to the Mess, eat some food, then go to sleep.”

Leonard scowls over his shoulder at the woman manhandling him across his own Sick Bay. “Last time I checked I was this ship’s Chief Medical Officer and an adult fully capable of taking care of himself, Nurse. I do not take orders from you.”

“Of course, Doctor McCoy,” she replies in that fake sweet voice that she uses with difficult patients. “You are not to step foot past those doors for ten hours. If I catch one glimpse of hide or hair of you, you’ll find yourself sedated so fast your head will spin.”

Leonard tries to hold back the flinch at the thought of being caught up in those nightmares again, but he must have failed spectacularly because Christine’s face softens as she slows them to a stop by the main doors. Leonard can almost see the gears turning in her head as she tries to come up with the right words to say.

Leonard pats her shoulder with a small reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, Christine, I won’t let a few nights of insomnia keep me from doing my job.”

Something flashes through her eyes and she opens her mouth to say something when an orderly calls out a question to Christine. Knowing not to look a gift horse in the mouth, Leonard slips out of Sick Bay in the precious few seconds his intimidating Head Nurse is distracted. The doors slide shut with a hiss behind him and Leonard heaves a sigh of relief at his narrow escape. He is not going to give that woman any more time to try and slip a hypo in his back than is absolutely necessary.

For a moment, Leonard debates just going back to his quarters to try sleeping again but the lingering whisper of panic ultimately make the decision for him to go left instead of right.

The commute to the Mess and procession through the meal line passes in a haze of exhaustion. Leonard is vaguely aware of grumbling to himself while picking at the limp replicated salad when a loud salutation of “Bones!” cuts through the banal chatter around him.  

Leonard’s hand jerks in surprise, eliciting a squeal from his silverware scraping against the metal tray. Jim winces in apology as his companion’s dark brown eyes minutely twitch around the edges.

“Sorry, Bones. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

Leonard waves the apology away with the offending fork even as the other man plops down in the chair across from him.

“May we join you, Doctor?”

Leonard sends a pointed glance at Jim who is already picking up his cheeseburger.

“So polite of you to ask. At least one of y’all has manners.”

Jim grins at his friend around the mouthful of beef and bread. Rolling his eyes, Leonard is about to gesture for the other man to sit down when he sees the flicker of a black goatee. Leonard flinches back in his chair but the facial growth is gone leaving only the clean shaven slightly puzzled look of concern behind.

“Are you alright, doctor?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just have a bit of a headache is all.” Apparently, Spock takes this as an invitation and sits down next to Jim who has just paused from taking his second bite.

“Is it the same one from a few days ago?” Jim asks, lowering his cheeseburger.

“Nah, that one was just from you all yapping so much about space time continuums and their relationship to transporters,” Leonard says, looking down at his salad. He does not mention that just hearing those vague references to the mirror universe had him dry heaving for an hour afterwards.

“Come on, Bones. Even you have to admit it is a pretty good case for the argument nurture versus nature.”   

“In fact it was interesting to note that it was far easier for you as civilized men to behave like barbarians, than it was for them to behave like civilized men,” Spock remarks casually.

Leonard’s grip tightens around his silverware, keeping his gaze fixed on his tray.

“I'm not sure, but I think we've been insulted,” Jim replies amiably.  

“I’m sure,” Leonard forces out between gritted teeth, stabbing at a piece of lettuce with extra vitriol.

He looks up just in time to see Spock glance over at Jim giving him a significant look. Leonard chews viciously on the greens, refusing to watch a conversation he is clearly not a part of.

“So,” Jim says, in an obvious attempt to switch topics, “Spock and I were going to meet up after shift to go to the Rec Room. Did you want to come?”

“Think I’ll pass, Jimmy.” Leonard pauses for a second to stifle the twist of envy in his chest before he masochistically says, “Besides when was the last time you and the hobgoblin had a proper date?”

Jim laughs nervously, glancing over at Spock with panicked eyes. “Whatever do you mean, Bonesey?”

Leonard raises his eyebrow expectantly.

“Twelve days and six hours ago.”

Jim squawks out Spock’s name in protest but the other men ignore him. “We were in the middle of dinner during shore leave when Lieutenant Sulu was kidnapped by pirates.”

“I thought we were keeping this on the down-low,” Jim hisses out, leaning in close to his alien partner. Calm brown eyes gaze down at the nervous crackle of energy that is now Jim Kirk.

“I was unaware that telling Leonard would be violating that agreement.”

There is a moment as the words sink in then Jim relaxes back into a warm smile and shrugs. “I guess you’re right. As usual.”

“Indeed,” Spock replies congenially.

“Back to the original question,” Leonard says, ignoring the slight warming of his cheeks. “When was the last time you had an uninterrupted date?”

Spock and Jim exchange a glance. “Never?” Jim hedges and Leonard can just see the twinge of exasperated fondness around Spock’s eyes as the Vulcan nods his agreement.

Ignoring the twinge of pain in his chest, Leonard continues, “That’s what I thought. How can you expect to…”                                                                                                          

_“…be a good husband if you are never here? Leo, you care more about your job than your family. You’re an absentee father and negligent husband. We don’t need you.” Jocelyn’s back is to him as she picks up Joanna’s toys. Her voice is cold and practically dripping with disdain. “I expect you to have your things out of my house by Monday.”_

Leonard blinks and he is back in the Mess Hall with Jim waving a hand in front of his face.

“You okay, Bones? You kinda drifted off mid-sentence,” Jim says.

“I’m fine. Just tired,” Leonard says, pressing the heels of his hands against his aching eyes until he sees starbursts. So tired he could almost smell the spice of Jocelyn’s perfume still lingering in the air as she basically threw him out of their home. “I think I’m gonna hit the hay early.”

“I was under the impression that you had Alpha shift. It is currently the middle of Beta shift,” Spock says, the accusation clear in his tone.

“I wanted to get some paper work out of the way but apparently the Head Nurse overrides the Chief Medical Officer on this bucket of bolts. Christine practically kicked me outta my own Sick Bay and demanded that I grab a bite to eat or suffer her wrath.”

“I find that Christine often knows what she is talking about. But, if Bones is tired enough to nod off during a lecture, you know he is exhausted,” Jim grins, leaning forward with a smirk.

Leonard made a vague waving motion. “That was hardly a lecture. Mild teasing at best.”

“If you are tired, it is only logical that you follow Nurse Chapel’s advice. Jim and I will collect your tray so that you may retire to your quarters.”  

Leonard sends the hobgoblin a grateful smile. “Thanks. That’s awfully kind of you. Hope y’all have a good date night.”

“Night, Bones.”

“Sleep well, Leonard.”

Jim’s smile seems a bit morose but Leonard shakes off the ridiculous thought as he makes his way back to his empty quarters.


End file.
